Millennium Ficlets
by Indigo Assassin
Summary: Chapter 7 - It's Not What It Looks Like. A bit of a misunderstanding between two characters. Check out my Tumblr to suggest chapter prompts. Open to all character combos, platonic or romantic. Rating never above T. Reviews and constructive crit appreciated.
1. Celebration

**Prompt by CrazyforKate**

It was Christmas Eve when Lisbeth Salander stepped out of her Honda into three inches of snow outside of the Ersta rehabilitation home. Two boxes; one large, the other slim, were tucked under each arm as she walked with a slight bounce in her step towards the older building.

Palmgren sat at their usual table next to the bay window overlooking the park and pond behind them, now frozen over. Before him sat the wooden chess set that had passed from his possession into Lisbeth's and then back again. Beside it was a too-perfectly wrapped box covered in little snowmen.

They played a few rounds of chess before exchanging gifts. Lisbeth had been less ruthless than usual, but wound up annihilating him each time. Palmgren just smiled the whole time. He'd given up any hope of beating her at the damned game a week after they'd played their first game almost twelve years ago.

His hands barely shook when he slipped a finger under the wrapping of the box Lisbeth had slid across the table. They'd seen a huge big improvement in dexterity since his birthday in October when he was last challenged with Lisbeth's attempt at giftwrapping. The paper fell away with little effort, revealing a Sony portable DVD player.

When he pushed the snowman box towards her, she shook her head and halted his hand. "Open the other one first."

The smaller box was slightly more difficult to coax open, but the look on his face when he finally tore the newspaper off was better than anything his physical therapist had helped him wrap. She'd known for years he had a borderline addiction to crime TV shows, so along with the DVD player she'd picked up the first three discs of _Wallander_.

The two of them earned a scowl from Sivarnandan when she ordered a medium pizza from Pizza Hut, but he didn't say anything against it as they both sat in front of the DVD player watching the first disc of _Wallander_. It was Christmas, after all.


	2. Confession and Promise

**Prompt by Moleft**

Lisbeth had been alternating between dozing against her window seat with nothing but a thin sheet wrapped around her and watching a horribly bootlegged copy of _Sweeney Todd_ when her doorbell began to ring. There was only one person who would ever molest her doorbell at that time of the morning. She didn't bother throwing on any clothes; she just dragged the bed sheet wrapped around her frame with her to the front door, Mikael still beating the living shit out of the doorbell.

"For fuck's sake Kalle, it's four in the morning-" she started to come up with all the reasons he should be back in his own bed, but he pushed past her as soon as the door opened.

"Just invite yourself in, then. I don't mind at all." She called after him.

"I smell fresh coffee and a pack of Marlboro Reds. Don't act like I interrupted your beauty sleep."

Lisbeth was impressed where other more sensible women would be offended. Blomkvist rarely had the balls to make even a half-decent comeback like that. It also meant something was bothering the shit out of him. She caught him running his hand over the pink line that crossed this throat just under his chin while she lit her last cigarette. Maybe he was having more nightmares about Hedestad.

She stepped into the kitchen and grabbed two mugs from the rack above the coffee maker. When she stepped out of the kitchen he was sitting in _her_ spot on the window seat. _Fine_. She wound up wedging herself on the opposite side of the bench, knees drawn all the way up to her chest with the sheet still draped over her.

"Thanks. You haven't been sleeping well either by the looks of it."

She sipped at her own mug while he placed his on the windowsill. "Some would think I don't sleep at all."

"I guess that's one more thing I know compared to some."

She just continued looking at him. He didn't come here to talk about her sleeping habits. He was here for a reason and she would wait it out until he finally caved.

Mikael swirled the coffee around the cup, inspecting its contents. "No cigarette butt at the bottom of this?"

Lisbeth smirked at that particular memory, shaking her head. He'd been holding that one incident over her head for the last two years. Now he rarely trusted coffee coming from her unless he made it himself. Contrary to whatever he had thought at the time, it was in fact and accident with no malicious intent.

"It's still up here," he said without warning, tapping a finger against his skull, "At the strangest moments all of the sudden you're laying in that kitchen covered in dirt and blood. I can't get rid of it, no matter how hard I try. I could be walking down the street to Millennium and then all I can think of is the message you left on my phone. It tortures me constantly."

"But what tortures me the most was being so distant from each other. How six words on my computer almost turned into your last words."

It was her turn to feel pained. Lisbeth rarely felt regret, but when she came around in Sahlgrenska alive and well, her final words haunted her. It sounded more like a suicide note than a genuine thank you like it was meant to be.

"I'm sorry about that." She said.

"I know. But promise me something. If things ever get _that_ bad, I want to hear your voice. No emails or word documents on my computer at one in the morning. Call me, even if you can only whisper one word."

On the outside, she maintained her usual coolness as Mikael looked at her with expectant eyes. Of all the things she expected that he would say, he had gone in the complete opposite direction. She had expected something more along the lines of, 'please no more vigilanteeism,' not, 'let me hear your voice once before you die.' The idea had just enough of a kick to pull on heartstrings she'd promised herself her dead two years ago.

"I promise."


	3. Toblerone

**Prompt by Anonymous**

Blomkvist was sitting against the wall of his ten by six cell staring at the bed opposite to him when the locks to the metal door started to click open.

"You would think it would be you bailing my ass out of prison for breaking the Minister of Integration's nose." There stood Lisbeth, leaning against the sold metal frame with arms folded against her chest. Darkly tinted sunglasses shielded her eyes, but he knew that behind them she looked at him with a deep sense of amusement. "Good job, Kalle."

"Hey," he stood, not missing his chance at freedom, "I thought you were in the Netherlands?"

"You made the morning news in Amsterdam. I figured I should congratulate you and Monica on your reunion. Nothing like getting tackled to the ground by your ex."

Blomkvist ignored her last comment. It seemed every woman he knew had to take a swipe at his latest failed relationship, even if it ended over a year ago. He stepped out of the overnight cell normally used as a drunk tank while Lisbeth locked it behind him.

They stopped at the discharge desk so Mikael could pick up his laptop bag that had been confiscated. "Monica is going to kill you for letting me out." Lisbeth smirked in a way that plainly said '_I'd like to see her try_' as she led him towards the stairs and parking garage. A black duffel bag and a half-eaten package of Toblerone sat on the front seat that he promptly threw into the backseat. He waited until they were well on there way out of Kungsholmen before asking how she'd gotten clearance to open jail cells.

"My dear Mikael, I have clearance to use the Prime Minister's bathroom if I want." She pulled a black leather ID holder from her purse resting on the center console and tossed it into his lap. Torsten Edklinth. The SAPO director. "The municipal jail is nothing."

He held it up to check for any signs of forgery or tampering. There were none. Either her pickpocketing abilities were more impressive than he thought or she had managed to manufacture one of the best forgery dupes Sweden had ever seen. "You know I'm pretty sure stealing the director of SAPO's clearance card is a federal offense with a minimum sentence."

"Ten years. Usually reduced to about seven since just about everyone gets paroled."

"Right."

She pulled up in front of _Millennium_, idling the car as he got out.

"Thanks."

"Yep."

He grabbed his laptop bag from the floor and shut the door behind him, but then noticed she was still smirking. He almost laughed out loud when he realized what she'd probably been doing for the past five days in the Netherlands.

"Question," he said just as she turned the keys in the ignition, "How high are you right now?"

"Bye Mikael."

Lisbeth rolled the window up before driving off, pulling an illegal u-turn at the end of the street to head back towards Mosebacke. She honked twice as she drove by, prompting Malin to come walking out of the office. She looked in disbelief at Blomkvist, not expecting him to be out so early.

"Hey. I thought Berger was going to bail you out later today." She looked at the car speeding away down Götgatan, "What was that?"

"A very baked Lisbeth Salander."


	4. XXXX Gold

**Prompt by CrazyforKate**

Sitting on the front porch of Harriet Vanger's Outback estate, Mikael Blomkvist fished another bottle of XXXX Gold out of a cooler. Once frozen solid, the ice and beer had managed to melt to a lukewarm temperature in less than ten minutes. Even after eleven at night, the temperature was just two clicks under one hundred degrees. If they were lucky it would get down to around eighty by three before climbing back up to ninety by breakfast. Silently, Blomkvist thanked whatever higher power that was out there that Harriet agreed to catch the flight to Stockholm tomorrow afternoon.

Harriet looked on in amusement from the porch swing as he popped the bottle's top off on the edge of the railing. "What number are you on now?"

"Three," he said, "How much more is left?"

"We'll both be dead from alcohol poisoning before this house ever runs out of beer."

Blomkvist made a sound of approval before taking a swig of the Australian brew. He was perfectly content the way he was; sweating his way through another bottle while leaning against the porch rails and staring at wide-open skies.

It was a completely peaceful moment until a low, yodeling noise started up somewhere out beyond the barbed fence surrounding the property. Foolishly he looked behind him to see if she had heard it as well, and found Harriet aiming a gun straight at his back, inspecting the chamber.

"I know you probably don't appreciate a journalist knowing your darkest secrets, but there's no need to point a gun at my backside." He said jokingly, though if he were in her position it wouldn't be a half-bad idea. She could just shoot him and leave him for the dingoes somewhere in the Outback and go back to being Anita Cochran.

She didn't look up at him as she loaded a five round magazine into the gun, a Ruger by the looks of it. "I'd rather not have to put another horse down over a dingo attack." She opened the bolt and set it back down to lean against the swing, "I'm a good shot."

"I'll bet. The sheep are right up against the barrel when you kill them off. Pretty hard to miss a shot like that."

Harriet looked up at him with a quirked eyebrow, resting a hand across her chest in mock offense. "I'll have you know I've taken down wild dogs at five-hundred yards from a moving Jeep."

"Really?"

"Really." She affirmed.

"Fair enough then. How good are you at shooting beer bottles off fence posts?"

"Is that a challenge Little Micke?"

"Little Micke?" He shook his head, their conversation heading into stranger and stranger waters. "You're just as horrible as my sister. I just figured that these last two days have probably been the two shittiest days you've had in forty years. Why not have some fun?"

"Maybe I don't trust Little Micke with a gun."

"I served as a rifleman in Kiruna."

"Is that your way of saying we're evenly matched?"

"Would you accept if I said we were?"

"I think so."

She stood and wandered off to somewhere in the house and returned with an unopened box of ammunition.

Jeff sat in his mother's office that night, calculating just how deep the loss would be for the station after the culling of almost seven hundred heads of sheep while trying to ignore the hooting and hollering and rifle shots coming from the porch outside. Early the next morning he found his mother and the man who claimed to be formerly babysat by her in Sweden laying passed out against the porch rails with a fifty round box of .30-06 ammunition completely empty. Six beer bottles were still sitting on the fence posts less than a hundred feet away.


	5. Drowning, Freezing, and Dying

**Prompt by curvingaway**

It was just after eleven that morning when his cell phone began to ring. Berger sat across from him, attacking an article with her red pen and looked up briefly before going back to her editing, smirking slightly. Neither of them needed to look at the caller ID to know who was calling.

"Yep."

"Help."

"With what?"

"I've fallen and can't get up."

He pulled the phone away from his ear when a loud hacking noise filled the speaker. "And you sound horrible to boot."

"I feel like I'm drowning and freezing and dying all at the same time," she said, sounding comical rather than threatening with her stuffed nose, "Now shut up and come over here."

"Where is 'here?'"

"Where do you think? My apartment!"

"Is it an emergency or are you just being lazy?"

"Mikael…" She started to whine.

"Lazy I see." Mikael leaned back in his chair. He knew he gave in too easily where ever Lisbeth was concerned, but he didn't feel up to listening to whatever sound of pleading she was making now. "Fine."

"Stop at 7-11 on the way over?"

"I am not buying you cigarettes." He checked his watch. Hopefully he could be back in half an hour. "Be there in ten minutes."

Berger didn't look up from her work as he stood and walked around the desk to grab his jacket off the sofa. "Where are you off to?"

"Early lunch break," he said, brushing a hand lightly over her shoulders, "Back in a bit."

—-

Lisbeth must have dozed off moments after they'd hung up. The next thing she knew, two large arms wrapped around her midsection, lifting her back up onto the leather couch she'd managed to slip off of during her fevered thrashing.

She looked up with half open eyes to see Blomkvist dragging a blanket across her frame, softly chastising her. "You called me just so you could have me drag you back up onto the couch?"

"And stop at 7-11." She half-heartedly pouted, already turning her face into the warmth of one of the pillows she'd dragged out of the bedroom earlier that morning.

"I told you I wasn't going buying you cigarettes. Get over it."

"You negativity isn't helping my head."

"Sorry buttercup." _Yeah right_, she thought, pulling her quilt over her head.

He started scrapping all the used tissues off the coffee table into a fresh wastebasket when he noticed something odd. "Why aren't you on your laptop working?"

"The light's too bright and the screen's too big. The Egyptians are just going to have to deal with not having Facebook for a week."

"What?"

"Nothing," She said, dragging a sweaty hand across her face. She did _not_just say that to practical pig Kalle Blomkvist. "Don't listen to me. Totally sick. Hallucinating. Can you make coffee?" _And completely forget what I just said._

The last thing she needed right now was him poking around in her job. Again. Like the time he tried to use a butter knife to open her office door. Or when he erased her computer after maxing out her passord attempts to open her work files. For the most part he gave up after she booby-trapped her filling cabinet with one of those purple dye packs that they put in money bags, but since then she'd become her own worst enemy, occasionally slipping info about her latest projects or assignments.

Another massive quilt flew her way from the general direction of the linen closet that she snatched up gratefully. Blomkvist stood at the arm of the couch, his arms crossed over his chest. "You're not very good at this sick thing. Tea or water? No coffee."

She found herself groaning something unintelligible into the quilt before yelling '_tea,'_ not sure where in the apartment he'd disappeared to. "This is worse than the fucking swine flu last year."

"I hope you can keep it to yourself this time," he said, placing a mug on the now tissue-free coffee table, scooted it towards the couch another foot just so he wouldn't get a call fifteen minutes later for another rescue up off the floor. "Can I go back to work now or do you need me to fluff your pillow for you, too?"

"Oh, can you do that for me?"

Blomkvist snorted and got up from where he sat on the arm of the couch._Guess that was a no. Damn_.

"I think you're still hallucinating if you think I'm your slave every time you're sick," he said, walking around the couch to brush a strand of hair off her clammy forehead. "I'll swing by after work with food. Call Miriam if you want to contaminate anyone else in the meantime."


	6. Gaza

**Prompt by Anonymous**

_A/N - No personal hate towards Islamic countries if it comes off that way?_

"Hey. Can I come over?"

She paused with her hurried packing, holding a pair of trousers in midair for inspection. Nope. Too tight. "You know normally you just fuck my doorbell senseless and skip the calling all together." She tossed the trousers into a growing heap on the floor. Damn Islamic countries and their conservative dress.

"Interesting choice of words, but yes. I suppose I do," he said, "I don't know though. Today I just had a feeling I should call first."

"Good feeling," she said absently, throwing more clothing on the floor. She really needed Mimmi's fashion guidance the next time she went out shopping. The Middle East was going to suck in all black and ridiculously baggy clothing. "Can you call back in a few days? I need to hop a plane in a bit."

"Off to the Netherlands again?"

Lisbeth yanked a black sweater off its hanger a little more forcefully than necessary at his comment. "That is not funny."

"You walked into the jail completely stoned and no one noticed. It was pretty fucking hilarious from my point of view."

"Some people did actually notice," She said as she threw the phone onto the bed, speakerphone on. She hadn't managed to alter the records soon enough after that. Bye-bye Edklinth ID. Blomkvist continued to snigger on the other side of the phone. "I'll repeat: not funny."

"Right." Lisbeth thought he could do a better job at sounding sincere, but what the fuck. She didn't have the time to tell him otherwise.

"Done bugging me yet?"

"Hang on; you still haven't told me where you're going."

"Gaza."

"What?"

"Do I need to say it again for it to sink in?"

"Yes! No!" She swore she could almost hear him slamming his palm into his face, "Just why in God's name are you going to Gaza?"

Lisbeth figured Mikael lucky. If he were there right now there was no guarantee she wouldn't slap him. "I'm going to go sit on a beach and contemplate life."

"You're joking."

"Of course I am," she snapped, "I have work-"

"Every time you say you're going somewhere for 'work-'"

"I don't just pull it out of my ass. I'm dead fucking serious."

"Let me finish, Pippi!" She shot a glare at the phone at the use of his favorite pet name for her. One day she would make his pay for the day he got that particular bright idea. Maybe she could rig another dye bomb to his front door on her way over to Bromma. She checked the time on her phone. Nope. No time for revenge now.

"Lisbeth, every time you say you're going somewhere on 'work' business, I don't hear from you for days, even weeks. Then when you come back and I finally weasel where the hell you've been out of you, I find you've gone somewhere that's either right in the middle of a civil war or just about to start one. Ever single time you're gone I think that maybe I'll wake up in the morning and see a news bulletin that something's happened to you. It's maddening!"

"I'm not going to die, Kalle. You can shoot me three times and bury me alive and still not get the job done. Get checked out for PTSD while I'm gone if it bothers you so much."

"Fuck Lisbeth! This isn't a fucking joke! I care! I really do!"

"I never made it out to be a fucking joke! Now kindly fuck off while I finish packing!"

She sent her toiletries bag hurtling across the bedroom floor as she hung up.

Sometime early the next morning, a silent text lit up Blomkvist's phone.

_Stop worrying Kalle. Back tomorrow night._


	7. It's Not What It Looks Like

**Prompt by CrazyforKate**

Lisbeth wasn't one for class. In her short academic history, she'd seen them all. There were the old ones barely clinging onto their tenure and hearing aids (nursery school); the burnt out ones that took their frustration on all forms of life that were unlucky enough be in the same room (primary school); and then their were the young ones that had all the enthusiasm but no sense of discipline (her one year of secondary school).

Today she found a new category. Drop dead boring, monotone, and possibly stoned. Tertiary education at its finest. It didn't help that she had no fucking clue what the woman was saying, she just kept droning on in Spanish, not even looking up from her computer where she was failing at starting a power point presentation. She was pretty sure half the class of one hundred and fifty seven was either asleep or on their smartphones playing Farmville, just as uneager as she was for the next four weeks of hell.

But if the unintelligible babbling wasn't enough, she also had an unexpected classmate that seemed to take more sideways glances at her than at the instructor.

Pernilla Blomkvist.

Lisbeth had created a mental game: count how many times the words God, Jesus, and missionary work came out of her mouth. So far she was at fifty-one and that wasn't even counting the other seven girls with gold crosses hanging around their necks.

Lisbeth did the most reasonable thing she could think of that didn't involve possible prosecution for a hate crime. She shut down the power to the campus.

All the missionary girls surrounding her screamed when the lights cut off and Lisbeth sniggered to herself all the way back to her car before bursting out into hysterics once a safe distance away. She would have to tell Trinity about it later.

The keypad to Fiskargatan just flashed all zeroes when she walked up to the door. Great. She was locked out of her own apartment and it was really fucking hot outside.

She sat down on the curb and thought about what to do. No work for the rest of the week. That was a bonus. Mimmi was still in Paris for another week, so that meant Kvarnen wouldn't be any fun and since it was Sunday so she couldn't take out her annoyance on Blomkvist over at Millennium.

But she could always annoy him at home.

"Door's open."

Lisbeth wondered if the journalist saw the stupidity behind leaving his door unlocked as she walked into the familiar studio apartment. The difference between inside and outside temperatures might have been one degree. The apartment was just as sweltering as the streets below. Blomkvist sat on one of the kitchen island barstools, playing a very old, beat-up guitar.

"Why don't you have any fans running?" She asked, taking the packaging off the pack of cigarettes she'd bought on the way over. Blomkvist gave her a disapproving look and she realized was only wearing a grey t-shirt and a pair of boxers behind the guitar. _Classy, Mikael_.

"Open a window if you want to smoke. Actually, open them all." Blomkvist didn't miss a beat and continued strumming away at his guitar. "Power's out all over the county."

So that's why the keypad to Fiskargatan wasn't working. "Oops." She said aloud, lighting up on the couch.

"You didn't…what am I saying? Of course you did."

"Someone will manually figure out how to restore the power grid eventually."

"Eventually," he echoed, "Why did you knock out the power grid in the first place? It's ninety degrees outside!"

"I may have underestimated the intricacy of the power grid. The extensiveness of the blackout wasn't planned."

Blomkvist stopped playing and dangled him arms of the body of the guitar. "If that's the best I'm going to get out of you, then apology accepted. There's kind of cold beer in the fridge."

She smirked, hopping off the sofa and heading towards the kitchen. "Nice noise."

"Noise? I just sat here and played probably my best rendition of Wild Horses yet and you call it _noise_?"

"I said was noise. It is noise. Doesn't mean I didn't like it," she said, shutting the fridge with a foot and popping the bottle top off on the edge of the counter. "Best rendition? Play it often for other people?"

"I do have a life and hobbies outside of _Millennium_," he said, "How about this song? You should probably know it."

"It's dangerous to have that kind of hope."

Blomkvist snorted, starting to pluck at the top three strings. The sound was deep and bassy with the distinct sound of nineties rock, but that didn't give her much.

He looked up at her blank face. "Nothing?"

"Nope."

"Do I have to sing it for you?"

"Go ahead," she said, taking another drag off her cigarette, "I still probably won't get it."

He stopped playing, pressing the palm of his hand across the strings to silence them. "From the top then. _She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak_."

"Still no."

"_I've been locked inside your…_" Blomkvist stopped playing, looking at her expectantly. She looked back, deadpan as usual. "I've been locked inside your..? Come on, Lisbeth! What's the one American band that was any good in the 90s!"

No clue. At all. Not one. But she decided just to guess something. If she was wrong her goal of annoying him would be complete. "Tupac?"

"Nirvana!"

"Oh." She said lamely. Blomkvist must have though she was pretty damn pathetic.

Oh well. He'd been warned. Now she just had one more mystery to solve. "Who's Tupac?"

Blomkvist opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by the doorbell.

He held up his hands, making a strangling gesture at her as he got up to answer the door, sitting the guitar down on the bed next to her. Yep. She was musically hopeless. What else was new?

Blomkvist couldn't believe his eyes when he opened the door. Pernilla. He hadn't seen her in at least two years. Some parent he was.

"Pernilla. Hi." It was lame, he knew, but what was he supposed to say?

"Hi dad," she hugged him but withdrew quickly, wrinkling her nose, "When did you start smoking again?"

"Sorry, that's not me-"

"Oh. Should I come back later then..?"

"No, no, no!" He shifted in the doorway, allowing her room to pass through if she wished, "Come in!"

"Dad. It's fine."

"Of course it's fine. Why wouldn't it be? Please, come in."

"Dad, don't worry! You don't have to ask me in if you're busy. I'll come back tomorrow, okay?"

As soon as Pernilla turned to leave, the light bulb went off, but it was too late. "Nilla? It's not what it looks like!"

She turned and smiled in an understanding way, "Bye dad."

"That was incredibly awkward," he said once the door was shut behind him. A hand drifted up to rub the back of his neck as she played nonsense notes on his guitar.

"I'm taking an advanced Spanish course with her and a bunch of her missionary people for the next four weeks," Blomkvist flinched at what could have passed for a mutated G chord, "Shouldn't be awkward at all."

He ignored her, instead falling on the bed next to her, pressing his face into the pillow. "I'm fairly sure my twenty-one year old nun of a daughter just walked away assuming we were having sex."

"You do look pretty sexed up."

Blomkvist just groaned.


End file.
